"We must face the ethical challenges of engineering life"
Scientists have a duty to initiate a dialogue with the public on cellular engineering, says Daniel Müller. The discussion must be held now – before complex engineered cellular systems are ready for widespread use in humans.
Gene therapy is at long last becoming available for the treatment of human disease. There are now approved gene therapeutic treatments for conditions as diverse as inherited blindness, childhood spinal muscular atrophy and some types of blood cancer. These therapies typically compensate for defects in a single gene by delivering the properly functioning gene to a patient either using viruses or cells as vehicles.
““Societal discussion should happen in a meaningful way that brings representatives of many schools of thought to the table.””Daniel Müller
Meanwhile, in the laboratory, the engineering of cells is going far beyond this relatively simple strategy. Researchers are also using non-human genes and are engineering cellular systems with complex functions, including some that are entirely new to humans (known as “de novo” functions). All of this leads to ethical questions that we must now address.
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This article also refers to the external page Conference on the Ethics of Engineering Life (ICEEL), organised on 26-27 September 2022 in Rome, Italy. In bringing together experts and laypersons from different nations, cultures, world religions and disciplines, this conference hopes to host a discussion in which all stakeholders participate on equal footing. We need a broad dialogue on the unique potential and risks of molecular and cellular systems engineering in order to reach a consensus between divergent views and values.
Daniel Müller, member of the ICEEL Organising Committee, is the Co-Director of the external page NCCR Molecular Systems Engineering and Professor of Biophysics at D-BSSE.